“Get out, now,” bulldog said. “Now.”
“Can’t do that,” Astaire said with a smile, tiptoeing over broken glass.
“Throw him out,” the bulldog said, and the Saint Bernard lumbered toward Astaire.
It was no contest. Astaire jumped to his right as the big man reached for him. Astaire threw a short, sudden kick to the rear of the big man’s left knee, and the Saint Bernard went down with a grunt. Bulldog left Talbott and moved toward Astaire, who circled to his right, saying, “If we can just be reasonable.”
Bulldog was in no mood to be reasonable and he was quicker on his feet than Saint Bernard. He anticipated Astaire moving to his left or right and had his arms held wide open. Astaire stepped into the open arms, planted his left foot flat on the floor, and leveled a stomach-high kick at the bulldog, who staggered back, slipped on glass, and fell heavily.
I moved to the Saint Bernard, who was doing his best to get to his feet and finding it hard to do without the support of his left leg. Bulldog was rolling on the floor, holding his stomach, and trying to catch his breath.
“I’ve never done anything like that in my life,” Astaire said.
“I think we should get out of here,” I said.
I grabbed the open-mouthed Willie Talbott and pushed him toward the door. Then I went into Talbott’s office and moved toward Miss Perez, who backed away from me as I circled around the desk. I took the empty gun from her hand, put it on the desk, reached down, picked up a flowery dress from the floor, and handed it to her. She looked at the dress as if it were some alien and puzzling item from Mars.
“Put it on,” I said. “Fast.”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Astaire and Talbott going through the studio door.
Miss Perez took the dress and got into it.
“You have shoes?” I asked. “You don’t want to walk through this glass without shoes.”
She blinked around at the floor, spotted a pair of slingback pumps, and slipped them on. I looked over at bulldog and Saint Bernard. They were recovering slowly, but they were recovering. I guided Miss Perez out of the cubicle and past the Saint Bernard, who turned to me and said, “I can’t walk, I can’t work.”
“Should have thought of that before you became an insurance salesman,” I said.
Astaire and Talbott were standing on the sidewalk. Talbott looked at Miss Perez, turned to me and said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“How did you find me?” I asked Astaire.
“Wasn’t looking for you,” he said with a shrug. “I called Forbes and asked him if he knew the name of the dance studio where Luna taught before he met her. He told me and. .”
“Here you are,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Let’s not do it again,” he said, looking at Miss Perez.
“Talbott’s right,” I said. “We should get out of here. I can only take one passenger in my Crosley.”
Astaire led us around the corner to a big black Lincoln with darkened windows. I kept my hand on Talbott’s shoulder to discourage him from taking off down the street. Astaire had no trouble leading Miss Perez to the front seat.
Fifteen minutes later we dropped Miss Perez at her aunt’s apartment on Burnside. Astaire gave her two twenty-dollar bills and asked if she was going to be all right.
Miss Perez had managed to find her way halfway back to the planet and, as she got out of the car, twenties in hand, she looked at Fred Astaire and said, “You’re him.”
“Always have been,” Astaire said.
“Is it okay I tell my Tia Alicia?” she asked.
“It would be my pleasure,” Astaire said as she opened the door.
“I don’t think I’m gonna spend this money ever,” she said.
“I suggest you do spend it,” said Astaire.
“Well,” she said, stepping onto the curb and brushing back a stray strand of hair. “Maybe one of them. Sorry I tried to kill you.”
I waved a hand in my best nonchalant manner.
“Willie?” she said to Talbott, but his head was down and he was in no mood for words of love.
Astaire pulled away from the curb and looked at Talbott and me in the rearview mirror.
“Well, Mr. Peters, where do we go from here?”
Chapter Seven: The Last Waltz
“What were you threatening Luna Martin with?” I asked, biting into my hot dog.
“Pardon me?” Willie Talbott answered.
I finished my dog, a giant Poochie Dog with kraut and a Pile-O-Fries from the Tastee Pup, a stand on Washington shaped like a giant Collie. Sandwiches were served over the counter in the dog’s belly. We-Fred Astaire and Willie Talbott-sat at one of the four wooden tables next to the dog. A couple of young women dressed for office work kept looking over at us, trying to decide if the man in sunglasses and Greek fisherman’s cap was someone famous.
Astaire sat with his legs crossed, facing Talbott. Astaire’s dog was naked, no ketchup, no nothing, just a red dog on a bun. I stood at his side next to the table, reaching down for my fries. My rear was only slightly improved. It felt better to stand.
“When I was a kid, I mean back in Seattle, they used to call me Twinkle-Toes, Twinkle-Toes Talbott,” Talbott said, wolfing down onion rings and looking over his shoulder for the Saint Bernard and the bulldog. “I had this talent with my feet, could pick up, improvise, show people how to do it.”
“Twinkle-Toes,” Astaire said, putting down his hot dog, “what were you threatening Luna Martin with?”
“Luna wasn’t much of a dancer,” Talbott said, looking at my side of fries now that his pile was exhausted. “But she looked good and she wanted to learn. So, we made a deal. You know what I mean?”
“Like the deal you have with Miss Perez?” I asked.
“Something like that,” he said. “You mind?” He pointed at my fries. I shrugged. He took a handful.
“And you taught her how to dance?” Astaire asked.
“Everything she knew,” Talbott said. “And she showed no gratitude, no loyalty, no appreciation. You think I might have another dog? I left all my money back in the office.”
Astaire fished his wallet out and handed Talbott a buck.
“Be right back,” he said and hurried to the open stomach of the collie, who looked suspiciously like Lassie, though Vivian Starbuck who owned the place insisted when asked that it was just a coincidence. “All collies look alike,” she said. “Mine just happens to look more like Lassie.”
“Having Luna Martin teach people to dance is like asking Hitler to teach the principles of Buddhism,” Astaire said, watching Talbott who stood patiently waiting for his food. “Maybe we should have let those two back there shoot him.”
“You mean it?”
“No,” said Astaire, looking at me over his sunglasses. “But the Twinkle-Toes Talbotts of the world are unleashing a plague of lead-footed smiling robots on the dance floors of America, robots who then go on to teach the Twinkle-Toes method of dance to their unwary friends and defenseless children.”
“That bad?” I asked.
“Worse, far worse,” said Astaire as Talbott came back to the table with an overloaded dog and a double side of fries.
“Before you put your teeth into that, Willie,” I said, pulling his full paper plate in front of me the moment he put it on the table. “Tell me what you had on Luna.”
Talbott looked to Astaire for help. The dancer was impassive under his Greek fisherman’s cap.
“Okay,” said Talbott with a sigh, glancing at the two lunching women who were sipping Pepsi and eyeing our table. “I needed a few dollars and I asked for a loan from Luna, just enough to pay off a few debts. You saw back there.”
“We saw,” Astaire said.
“Well,” Talbott went on, “I’m not proud of it, but I told Luna I’d tell Fingers Forbes that she used to work in cheap dime-a-dance joints when she got started and that she was overfriendly with some of the clients when I took her under my tutelage at On Your Toes. All right?”